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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



o U 

THE THEOLOGIES. 



GERRIT SMITH. 



Second Edition. 1 



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THE THEOLOGIES. 

BY 

GEEEIT SMITH. 



THE THEOLOGIES 



That the living theologies will all fall into the tomb of the 
long-ago-dead ones, and will, like Greek and Eoman mythology, 
be remembered but to illustrate superstition, to adorn a speech 
01 enliven a page, is what no one should doubt. This is to be 
the fate not only of the rude and unsystematized theologies, 
which stand in the traditions of the barbarous and illiterate, 
but also of the widely-prevailing theological systems that are 
found, or claimed to be found, in the Bible, the Koran, and the 
other authoritative " Sacred Books." Whilst, however, we are 
sure that, i n the progress of science and civilization, these heavi- 
est of ail she curses of earth will pass away, we nevertheless 
have abundant reason to fear that this joyful event will not be 
until after still more of long and weary ages. That the theolo- 
gies are this preeminent infliction on the human family is but 
too obviously true. They do more than all things else to dark- 
en life, to shut out sweet sunshine from the soul, to fill it with 
trembling apprehension, and to sink it in agony and despair. 
Who but the Hindoo himself can tell what the Hindoo suffers 
from his horror of transmigration and from other horrors in- 
spired by his theology ? Does the Bible man suffer much less ? 
As a general thing, he does. But it is not mainly because his 
theology is much less terrific — for it is not. It is mainly be- 
cause, his intelligence being greater, his faith is less absolute 
and absorbing. Moreover, a considerable share of the Bible 
men flatter themselves that, by means of their technical or 
magic change, they will escape the common doom. The pro- 
portion of Hindoos who expect to escape it is probably far 
less. But the pain inflicted by the theologies is not all. What 
can more debase and shrivel the soul, as well as distress it, than 



4 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



this "fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation 
■which shall devour the adversaries ?" — than this belief not only 
of living all one's life here and hereafter, but even of being 
from, under " the wrath of God?" 

It is, indeed, encouraging to see so many of the wise and 
good at work to reform and improve the theologies. But far 
more encouraging is it to see others of this class at work to 
abolish them. Nothing of these hideous structures, which have 
for so many centuries cast their baleful shadows over the whole 
earth, should be left standing. There are, we confess, many 
great and precious truths scattered through these theologies. 
Nevertheless, nothing of all the superstitiously and cunningly- 
devised systems which contain them ; not one shred of all the 
fabrics of fancy and fraud into which they are woven ; nor of 
all the black pictures, broad caricatures, and abominable mis- 
representations of God and man, which these theologies have 
imposed upon the credulity of their disciples, should be suf- 
fered to survive. TVe clo not deny that these theologies can be 
somewhat reformed and improved. But they can not be made 
harmless, nor even less than mighty for evil, except by anni- 
hilating them. 

That these theologies are not soon to disappear should, in- 
stead of being allowed to discourage us, but serve to make us 
more impatient to have the right and effectual blows struck 
at them. They, who are only pruning their branches, should 
be wielding axes upon their roots. They, who are at work to 
make them better, should be at work to overturn them from 
their lowest foundations. Some of these would, for conscience' 
sake, retain the theological systems, were they but modified 
here and there. Others, however, of these superficial workers, 
would be glad to be more thorough, could they believe that 
they would thereby hasten the overthrow of these systems. 
They would thereby hasten it. Going for a whole truth is 
more effective than going for a part of one — the whole one 
being the more obvious, the more commanding of approbation, 
and, every way, the more powerful and influential. On this 
principle the public mind is far better prepared for the entire 
flinging away than for the partial retention of the theologies. 

But why am I so utterly intolerant of the theologies ? It is 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



5 



chiefly because they not only stand in the way of religion, but 
are so confounded with it, as to be taken for it. The bloody 
worship of Juggernaut is religion in one part of the world. In 
another, belief in the marvels told by and of Mohammed is reli- 
gion ; and in another, belief in the unrivaled fish story, and 
that Balaam's ass did actually speak. This illustrates the power 
of the theologies to usurp the place of religion, and pass them- 
selves off for it. Roman Catholicism allowed her theology to 
carry her so far away from religion, as to involve her in the 
measureless guilt of setting up the Inquisition. So, too, it was 
letting their theology become their religion, that led Eoman 
Catholics and Protestants to the wholesale slaughter of each 
other. A few words in the Bible respecting a curse belched 
forth by a drunken man have been the justification of large 
portions of Christendom for sinking tens of millions of Africans 
in the pit of slavery. It is true that the Greeks and Romans 
were slaveholders, and that it was not because they had an au- 
thoritative " Sacred Book" to sanction it — for they did not 
have it. But it must be remembered that with them slavery 
was intended to be a step forward in humanity and civilization. 
It was consenting to let prisoners of war live. A few words in 
the Bible have sufficed to sink woman from her natural equal- 
ity with man into his inferior and servant. She is beginning 
to complain of the extensive denial of her civil and the entire 
denial of her political rights. But in vain her complaint, so 
long as the theologies are an admitted authority. The first 
thing for woman to do toward regaining her freedom, is to free 
herself from the power of the theologies. This is the fountain- 
head of her oppressions. She will never succeed in throwing 
off her multiplied wrongs so long as she consents to let this 
great authoritative wrong, which lies back of them, and pro- 
duces them, continue to exist. So long as it exists, she can 
gain but little by summoning to her help the pleas of reason 
and nature ; for even reason and nature are powerless in the 
presence of a hostile and admitted authority. In proceeding 
under this head, I need not particularize the wars which have 
come from the theologies. I need not refer to the rivers of 
blood which have flowed from contentions about a single theo- 
logical dogma — that, for instance, regarding the grade of 



6 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



Christ's being. Gifted, learned, admired individuals have, as 
well as the masses, fallen under the misleading influences, and 
sometimes under the infernal sway, of these theologies. By 
giving the reins to theology instead of religion, the very intel- 
lectual and very conscientious Jonathan Edwards became a se- 
yere and persistent slaveholder. In this wise, too, the perhaps 
no less intellectual and conscientious Calvin consented to the 
burning of Servetus. In this connection, let me remark that 
the conscientious theologian, who makes his theology his reli- 
gion, is the most striking of all the instances in which con- 
science, instead of restraining from crime, impels to it. An 
unconscientious man may have a creed, but he is comparatively 
unconcerned to enforce it. Beware, however, of the consci- 
entious man whose judgment is perverted, and who is tempted 
to intolerance and persecution ! Especially beware of the 
conscientious man, who makes one of these false theologies his 
religion ! For both his theology and his moral sense — in other 
words, his idol and his conscience — command him to be unre- 
lenting. Nor are the theologies, as the unreflecting might sup- 
pose, confined to their especial channels. Everywhere they 
overflow their banks. Everywhere they mingle their dark 
and turbid waters with the bright and gladdening streams of 
life. All our affections and all our affairs are exposed to their 
poisonous and perverting influences. The natural and there- 
fore healthy loves and hates are modified and made morbid by 
these unnatural and monstrous theologies. Even Government 
itself is still called on to look to them as its authority, and to 
let them shape its policies and prompt its conduct. Amongst 
the noticeable recent instances of this are the sermons of Dr. 
Booth, of New -York, and Dr. Hall, of Northampton, in which 
our Government is virtually advised to look into a theology, 
especially into the doctrine of the atonement, for light and guid- 
ance in regard to its disposition of the Southern rebels. With 
such clergymen the paramount question is not what natural 
justice, but what theological justice, calls for — not what reason, 
but what the Book they assume to be revelation demands. 
And here let me say, that there is but one hope that the theol- 
ogies, so long as they shall be authority in the Church, will not 
again rule in our civil courts and civil councils, as they once 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



7 



did in a portion of our country. This hope is, that the counter- 
action outside of the Church will continue to be superior to the 
forces within it. Very true is it that the Church does, in many 
respects, benefit the world. But no less true is it that the 
world needs to protect itself from the Church; and that the 
protection will continue to be vitally needed so long as the the- 
ologies shall, by her recognition of their authority, make the 
Church, a source of frightful peril to the world. Eemember 
that Matthew Hale administered the law of witchcraft — the 
very witchcraft which the great and good but superstitious 
John Wesley made belief in to be essential to belief in the 
Bible* Let the Church again get the upper-hand of the world, 
and jurists as pure and wise as even Matthew Hale will admin- 
ister the absurd laws of absurd theology. Nay, in that event, 
as bloody horrors as ever theology-inspired law-makers and 
judges were guilty of, will be perpetrated. This will be so, 
however, only as long as the Church, shall continue to let the- 
ology stand in the place of religion. She will become a rich 
and unqualified blessing to the world just so soon as her reli- 
gion shall cast out her theology. That the danger of our own 
Government's falling under theological sway is not yet past, is 
manifest from the present endeavor of very numerous theolo- 
gians to get the Federal Constitution into their hands. To 
embody in that Paper some leading theological dogma — such, 
for instance, as that Jesus Christ is the ruler of nations — would, 
in the light of its broadening results, be a calamity, perhaps 
more to be deplored than our great rebellion. 

I have spoken of these theologies as authoritative. It is true 
that they are not so, certainly not always so, upon the great 
ecclesiastical leaders. The Luthers, Swedenborgs, and other of 
these leaders stretch and shorten and shape them as they will. 
But the masses, on whom the theologies, however modified, are 
absolutely binding, have no appeal from them ; no right to in- 
quire into their claims to credence ; no right to cast so much as 
one doubt upon those claims. 

"What I am writing will give offense, not only because it 
throws into one category all the theologies, but because, in 
doing so, it also throws into one category all the 11 Sacred 
Books " from which it is claimed they are derived — the Bible 

* What multitudes have been burnt or otherwise put to death, because of the wicked line in 
the Bible : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live !"— Read Lecky on Rationalism. 



s 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



as well as the Koran and the others. Are there not, however, 
respects enough in which these Books resemble each other, to 
justify the classing of them together for the purposes of my ar- 
gument ? The theologies drawn from them all are absurd and 
monstrous. The Books are all lacking in the amount of evi- 
dence necessary to establish their authenticity and genuineness. 
They all have but slender external evidences of the truth of 
their contents — so very slender that nothing in any of them 
should be received as certain truth, but what carries in itself 
the evidence that it is truth. Whilst the Sermon on the 
Mount is intrinsically and manifestly true — the truth of it 
shining by its own light — there is not only nothing in the ordi- 
nary histories and narratives of the Bible to make it certain 
that they are true, but next to nothing in the outward proofs 
and collateral testimonies to this end. In the case of its extra- 
ordinary histories and narratives, especially those which em- 
body miracles, there, of course, lie both these objections to cre- 
dibility and the additional one of the inherent improbability, 
not to say, in some instances, inherent impossibility, of the 
things related. And yet, strange to say, the miracles of the 
Bible are cited to prove the truth of the Bible, as well as their 
being in the Bible to prove the truth of themselves. But, how- 
ever true the miracles, they can answer for themselves only — 
not for the other parts of the Bible. So, too, the prophecies, 
which also are claimed to prove the truth of the Bible, and in 
turn to be proved by the Bible, can, in no event, do more than 
prove themselves. "Were the Bible one book, instead of scores 
of books of widely different ages stitched together — the produc- 
tion of one mind instead of many minds — there would be some 
plausibility in the claim, that one part of it goes to prove an- 
other. As it is, the claim is simply and utterly absurd. This 
vicious circular reasoning, which, in the present instance, allows 
naked assumptions to prove each other, would equally allow 
each in a company of detected rogues to swear his companions 
clear. 

The simple fact is, that we have no moral right to believe the 
whole of the Bible. The man, who believes every thing in it 
to be true, believes it, not in obedience to the laws of evidence, 
which are also the laws of his being, and therefore the laws of 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



9 



his God, but in defiance of them. He believes it, not ration- 
ally, but superstitiously ; not because of what it is, but because 
it is in the Bible. 

Have I made a poor book of the Bible ? I have not meant 
to do so ; for, although there are things in it which are foolish ; 
and things in it which physical science shows to be false ; and 
things in it condemned by moral science also — I, nevertheless, 
hold it to be the best book in the world. That it contains our 
earliest record of the words of the wisest, holiest, sublimest 
man that ever lived, is of itself enough to give it the preemi- 
nence amongst all books. Second, however, only to the words 
of Jesus, are the best words of the prophets and apostles, who 
speak to us in this book. But how can I know that Jesus was, 
if I do not know that all the Bible is true ? I admit that I do 
not certainly know when nor where he was born, nor what 
was his name. But that such a man lived is proved by his 
words — words such as no other man had equaled. Is it said 
that they were the words of some other person ? I answer that 
then this other person was himself the Jesus, and was only too 
modest or discreet to own it. He, from whom the wondrous 
words came — whenever he was, wherever he was, whoever he 
was, whatever his name — was the true Jesus. "We assure our- 
selves that Jesus existed much in the way that we assure our- 
selves of the existence of some other very eminent person of 
the past. It is not from the scanty and ud certain materials 
which make up his biography that we are sure Shakespeare 
lived. But, in the light of certain compositions, which are evi- 
dently the coinage of the same brain, we are sure that there 
did live — we can not tell precisely when nor where, nor even 
know we under what name — an unequaled dramatic writer. 
Shakespeare is no myth : and by similar reasoning Jesus is no 
myth. 

I have spoken highly of the Bible. That it abounds in the 
intensest national egotism and in the intensest national scorn 
and hatred, and in the falsest views of God, is only what might 
be expected from the narrow vision of most of its writers, and 
of the people to whom they belonged. For, remember, that 
the Jews regarded the earth as a plane of but a few thousand 
miles in circumference ; the sun, moon, and stars as but candles 



10 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



for it ; and the one work of God to love and care for them, and 
to hate and destroy their neighbors. Alas ! our folly in let- 
ting a people so ignorant and so mistaken make up onr Bible f 
If we must have a Bible— that is, a binding " Sacred Book " — 
how much more rational to let the advanced physical and 
moral science of modern times furnish it ! How irrational to 
turn our back upon the great light of the present, and to keep 
our face toward the thick darkness of the past ! 

"With all its faults, the Bible, were it allowed to take its 
.chance with other books, and be judged, as they are, simply by 
its merits, would be a blessing above all price. But so long as 
it is imposed upon us as an authority, and our faith in one part 
of it required to be as full as in every other — as unquestioning in 
the story of the standing still of the sun and moon as in the 
wisest words of Jesus— so long will it be like to do" more harm 
than good. So long as the Bible is held to be a finality ; a Pro- 
crustean bed to lop off and deter progress ; a stereotyped and 
unchangeable religion — so long must it be-of very evil influence 
upon those by whom it is thus held, and so long will they be 
liable to be prejudiced against it, who regard nothing as too 
good to be under the law of growth and progress, and nothing 
as so good that, in an age of great and general improvement, 
it can not become better. 

By this time my readers may be ready to ask me, how we 
can learn religion, if neither the theologies, nor the "Sacred 
Books " from which they are derived, can be depended upon as 
infallible teachers? I answer, that we are to learn it just as we 
learn all other things — by the action of the understanding upon 
facts. Until we take this only way to learn it, superstition will 
continue to usurp the place of religion, and the miseries, which 
ever attend upon the one, will continue to shut out the blessed- 
ness which is ever united with the other. After saying this, I 
scarcely need add, that I do not regard religion as a mystery. 
I mean by it the knowledge of our duties and the discharge of 
them. In the last year (I860) has appeared in our country a 
very eloquent and brilliant book, a leading idea in which is 
that the understanding can not discover religion, and that it is 
by means of a spiritual intuition or some faculty other than the 
understanding that religion can be discovered. Is not a similar 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



11 



idea found in the pages of Schleiermacher, and in the beautiful 
Quaker fancy of the " inner light ?" No wonder that the author 
of this book says : "Keligion needs mystery, and can not exist 
without it." But no theologies, that are largely made up of 
imagination and mystery — not even the refined theology of the 
book in question — can stand the increasingly severe tests of 
advancing science. A matter-of-fact theology — a theology, 
which, instead of cherishing mysteries, tends to dispel them — 
is the only one that can stand these tests. With the least pos- 
sible delay then should the nations get rid of the existing theo- 
logies, and set up in their stead a rational and scientific expla- 
nation of religion. To postpone this duty is to postpone the 
day when religion shall rest on a sure foundation — on the rock 
of facts. It is to leave religion, which should ever be recognized 
as founded in and identified with unmistakable nature, to be 
confounded with speculations upon the supernatural, and dreams 
of the unknown. 

I spoke of the necessity of learning religion from facts. But 
may they not be the facts of history ? — of the Bible and other 
books ? ISTo, the facts even of modern histories, and even of 
our own enlightened times, are quite too uncertain to be confi- 
dently adopted even by the philosopher or statesman. How 
emphatically too uncertain, then, for the foundation of religion 
— (a foundation which needs to be the surest of all sure things) — 
must be the facts of those ancient histories, such as the Bible, 
written in unscientific and superstitious ages, and stuffed with 
grotesque and absurd myths and legends ! Of all mistakes the 
most fatal is to take up with a historical religion. Even if it 
were the pure and true religion, when it came into the stream 
of history, what right have we to flatter ourselves that it has 
not, long since, become a corrupt and false one ? For what 
is there which that stream leaves as it found it? Nay, what is 
there which even begins its historical character in its entirely 
true character ? Surely, God has not left us to get our religion 
from a source so uncertain and so corrupt as history. 

What, then, are the facts by its right action on which the 
understandiug can discover religion? They are the earth and 
what — man preeminently included — pertains to it, with so much 
of the surrounding skies and worlds as science brings within 



12 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



our knowledge. But are here data enough, from which to learn 
religion ? If not enough, they are, however, all we have. But 
they are enough. From them we can learn, amongst other 
things, our relations and duties to our fellow-men. And if we 
do not choose to stop here with the disciples of Comte, and to 
worship nothing higher than Humanity, we can go on to learn 
from the same data our relations and duties to God. Here is 
enough from which to infer the wisdom, power, and goodness of 
Him from whom have come the earth and the sky. And in 
this power, wisdom, and goodness, there is enough to teach 
us what love, gratitude, and worship we owe Him. It is em- 
phatically true as the poet teaches, that we can look "through 
nature up to nature's God." He is known by His works. 

" If such the sweetness of the streams, 
What must the fountain be I" 

In this wise the studious and right-hearted can not fail to 
know much of Him, and to commune with Him. My under- 
standing, which has convinced me of the qualities of my neigh- 
bor, has also convinced me of what I owe him. In like manner 
are my convictions of the character of God followed by my con- 
victions of what I owe God. But, although we can learn much 
of God from His works — much of the supernatural from the 
natural — I, nevertheless, would refrain from going to super- 
naturalism for the solution of religious problems. "We need not 
go to it, because nature is sufficient to this end ; and we should 
not go to it because supernaturalism is but an inference, and 
inferences from inferences are to be more or less distrusted — at 
least, in matters of great moment. 

Nature alone is the standpoint and standard in human reason- 
ings. All admit it is in all things but religion. They should 
admit it is in that also. Nothing is more natural than love, 
which is so emphatically the chief exercise of religion that Paul 
resolves religion into the loving of one's neighbor as himself. 
But this is only loving naturally. For what can be more 
natural than to love, even as we love ourself, him who has 
rights and interests like to and equal to our own ? To be re- 
ligious, then, is simply to be natural. That a man, perplexed 
with problems in mathematics and mechanics, should invoke 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



13 



supernatural knowledge would not be the strangest of things. 
But as well might we look above the nature of water to learn 
that its law is to run down hill, as to look above human nature 
to learn that religion or love is its law. The germs of religion, 
and the faculties for maturing and unfolding them, so far from 
being foreign to our nature, are born with us, and are, as much 
as our muscles, a part of our nature. The water may get 
dammed up and turned backward. So a man may pervert his 
nature, and stifle his love and the other affections of religion, 
and sink himself in selfishness. But if he will return to his 
nature, these affections will again be in exercise. He will again 
love ; and, if he become entirely natural, he will love his neigh- 
bor even as himself 

I have now indicated the only true foundation of the only 
true religion. It is palpable, certain facts. Do I number God's 
Spirit amongst these facts ? I do not — for I am not certain 
that it is amongst them. I believe it is. I believe that it, as 
much as matter, is a part of the eternal constitution of nature. 
I believe it pervades the universe ; that all men can receive of 
it ; and that its power is such as to work in him, who opens 
wide his mind and heart to it, a change so great as to be com- 
parable to a new birth, and a resulting blessedness, which Jesus 
well calls "The Kingdom of God." I believe, too, that this 
being "born again," be it in this or in any coming stage of our 
existence, is the only door into this Kingdom. I speak less con- 
fidently of this regenerating power, because I speak from obser- 
vation instead of experience ; and can only say that I believe I 
have, in here and there a beautiful and sublime life, seen strong 
proof of it. Jesus was sure of the reality of this power ; and 
he was sure of it because he felt that he had the witness of it in 
himself. But whether they be few or many who have experi- 
enced this power, certain it is that vast numbers have, from 
what has passed in their own bosoms, been sure, not only that 
God is a Spirit, but that he gives his Spirit to the children of 
men. Yes, I believe in this Divine gift, and that it is by its 
help that men have hitherto made so great progress, and will 
hereafter make so much greater, in the knowledge of Divine 
things. 

And here, too, I may be asked whether I number God's 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



providence amongst these fundamental facts of religion. I 
answer that, on the one hand, I do, if His providence means His 
constant energizing of His laws, and His constant and changeless 
working through these constant and changeless, laws ; and that, 
on the other hand, I do not, if it means that He occasionally 
overturns them, and plants special providences upon their ruins. 
Such providences may bring present relief to this man, and 
temporary benefit to that man ; but if they are at the expense 
of the steady operation of the great laws adapted to mankind, 
they must be at the expense of mankind. Moreover, what can 
be worse for men than their habit of presumptuous reliance on 
special providences to deliver them from the straits to which 
their folly and rashness have reduced them, and to save them 
in their sin of violating the laws of their being ? 

So, also, I may be asked whether I give "immortality" a 
place amongst these fundamental facts. I do not — for I am not 
certain that man is immortal. The arguments in favor of it, 
which, on one occasion and another I have made, satisfied my- 
self. But neither did they satisfy all my hearers and readers, 
nor produce in myself the sense of entire certainty. But do I 
hold that men can love and worship God without being assured 
of their immortality ? Certainly I do. So majestic is this being 
which He has given to us ; so rich in its endowments; so large 
in its capacities for holiness, happiness, and usefulness, that even 
though we were sure it ends with this life, there would still re- 
main abundant reason why we should love Him with the whole 
heart, and serve and honor Him with all our powers. Abundant, 
too, would be our reason for rejoicing with the " Positivist," 
that the individual man, though ceasing to exist, shall, never- 
theless, live in his race. And, surely, if the 4 ' Positivist " can 
live for others (pour autrui) and worship humanity, we, with 
our more comprehensive faith, can also live for others, and 
worship the God of Humanity. 

And what of Eternal Punishment ? Do I place that amongst 
the facts on which Keligion rests? I answer that I believe 
in no God-inflicted punishment. Punishment in the next 
life there doubtless will be ; and I know not but it will, in 
some instances, be eternal. It will, however, be all self-inflicted. 
That is, it will all grow out of the character and conduct of the 



TIIE THEOLOGIES. 



15 



sufferer ; and if that character and conduct can be bad forever, 
then must he suffer forever- 
Alas, that Christendom went to the Jewish theology for her 
apprehensions and knowledge of God ! — to that theology which 
teaches that he is but a big* man 1 — the subject of human changes 
and caprices, now melted into sorrow, and now maddened into 
fury ! Alas, that she did not go straight to Nature, to God's 
own works and ways, for there she would have learned that He 
is our Friend and Father ; that He is never angry with even the 
worst of us ; that He curses none, and blesses all who will let 
Him bless them ! With what agonizing earnestness are men 
seeking the Divine forgiveness of their sins ! But, surely, it is 
in no common sense of the word, that God forgives His child- 
ren. He has kept no account against them, and there is there- 
fore nothing for Him to forgive. He but loves and pities all 
who are in the bondage of sin ; and He never ceases to hold out 
His delivering hand to them. Dear Morris Ketchum did not 
render due honor to the state of his own heart, when he told 
his unfortunate son that he forgave him. For the words might 
imply that there could have been a case in which he would not 
have forgiven him. But no such case could have been present- 
ed to such a father's heart. How much less would the Great 
Father be unforgiving to his child — even to his worst child ! 
Nay, the petition for His forgiveness, if offered in the common 
acceptation of the word, wrongs and dishonors Him. 

The Old Testament, because abounding in these horrible 
views of God, has, notwithstanding the precious and sublime 
truths scattered through it, wrought immeasurable misery and 
debasement wherever ignorance and superstition have acknow- 
ledged its authority ; and even the New Testament is not so 
clear of these views as to leave its value half what it would 
have been without them. The Apostles were not entirely rid 
of them : and even in some of the words ascribed to Jesus, 
an indorsement of these views is not entirely wanting. But, 
whilst it is improbable that we have a large share of his best 
sayings, it is also improbable that he said all which is credited 
to him. Words entirely out of harmony with his general 
utterances and general character we should be unwilling to be- 
lieve to be his words. And do I, then, make it simply a question 



16 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



of human reason what of Jesus to believe, and what not ? I 
do. And nothing can be more unreasonable than to bow to his- 
tory with all the submission due to mathematical certainties. 
History has been said to be a lie ; and what history is there so 
entirely free from falsehoods as to be able to look this saying 
full in the face ? 

By the way, this doctrine of Eternal Punishment is sustained 
mainly by one word, which is ascribed, no one knows whether 
rightly or wrongly, to Jesus — a word, moreover, that has come 
down to us through no one knows how many translations, and 
with what changes, therefore, of its sense ; for scholars no more 
agree what language it was originally recorded in, than they do 
as to the number of the previous years in which it was a mere 
tradition, and was, as well as its context, subject to the uncer- 
tainties and variations of a mere tradition. 

Is the Devil one of the facts on which the true religion rests ? 
He is not. He is a mere myth. Nevertheless, no actual being 
has grown so fast as has this purely imaginary one. He has 
grown from a principle into a person ; from a servant of God 
into a rival of God ; from a force in the physical world into a 
co-ruler in the spiritual. In the earliest notices of the Devil, or 
rather of the germs of the Devil, he is but the principle of evil. 
Then he rises into an agent of evil — only, however, in the exter- 
nal world. For it was many ages before the ancients came to 
recognize a power for evil, or even a power for good, in the 
moral world. They saw the goodness of God only in the sun- 
shine and rain, and other welcome phenomena of nature. They 
saw the malignity of the Devil only in the tornado and light- 
ning and other destructive agencies of nature. But, during 
the last two or three thousand years, and especially in Christen- 
dom, the Devil has become a power in the moral and spiritual 
world — a greater actual power than even God Himself — with 
millions of followers where God has but hundreds. The only 
relief under his present sway is the promise that it shall have 
an end. But when that end is to come no mortal knows. 

To the honor of the early Jews, there was no Devil in their 
theology. The Jews, who were carried to Babylon, appear to 
have learned and believed somewhat of him during their cap- 
tivity. The early Jews needed no Devil, for they believed in 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



17 



no Hell — no Hell, as the word is now popularly understood. 
The first Christians, had they drawn their creed from the Old 
Testament and old Jewish theology only, would have had in it 
neither Hell nor Devil. But they evidently blended with that 
theology Greek and Eoman mythology. Even Christ himself 
gave proof of this. For the parable of the rich man and Laza- 
rus is evidently constructed upon the classical mythological idea 
of the future life. According to this idea, only a river or gulf 
separates the blessed from the tormented. But, although it is 
impassable, it is not so wide as to prevent conversation between 
them. 

That Christendom, with all its increasing light, should still 
believe in the Devil is, indeed, a very remarkable fact. It 
shows how mighty is the ecclesiastical power. Not to believe 
in the Devil would be not to believe in Hell ; and the Devil 
and Hell are the foundation on which that power rests. Knock 
away this foundation, and the orthodox theology must fall, and 
also the churches built upon it. By the way, how much such 
forcible preachers as Jonathan Edwards and Nathaniel Emmons 
must have done to confirm and spread the most horrific ideas 
of Hell and the Devil ! How many tens of thousands have 
been made wretched through life by their pictures of the tor- 
ments of the damned and of the delights of the blessed in those 
torments ! Emmons is careful to add that, in some instances, 
their delights will be in the torments " of their own children, 
parents, husbands, wives, and friends." No wonder that the 
childhood of dear Horace Mann was made miserable by the ser- 
mons he heard from the lips of Emmons ! 

Nevertheless, this modern faith in the Devil is a great im- 
provement upon that ancient faith from which the Devil was 
omitted. The hypothesis of a Devil is a great relief to the 
character of the theological God. If there is a Devil's work to 
do, then by all means let there be a Devil to do it. Do not let 
God's hands be dirtied and bloodied by it. 

The theologies have a Devil's work to do; and therefore 
they have a Devil. Gratefully and gladly do I turn away from 
them to the religion of reason — a religion in which there is no 
Hell, no Devil, no co-ruler with God, no malignant rival of the 
loving Father. 



18 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



"Whether I make belief in the Trinity fundamental to a true 
religious faith, may be another inquiry. A three-headed ser- 
pent is a disgusting and abhorrent monster. So is a three- 
headed God. And what less than this is the Trinity, which is 
found in so many theologies? Why need we suppose that 
:there are three persons in God ? To explain what phenomena 
is this supposition necessary ? What attributes or sympathies 
•does the Great Father lack which makes it necessary to assume 
the existence of another Deity ; or, if the expression be pre- 
ferred, another person in the Godhead ? How derogatory to 
Him is the hypothesis that there is not in Him all that is need- 
ed in God! — that if, for instance, He have the father's wisdom 
and strength, He nevertheless lacks the mother's tenderness and 
love! 

Alas ! how much the world has lost by the deifying of 
Christ ! This incomparably best of all the specimens of man- 
hood might ere this, had he been left in his manhood, have 
become the chosen and cited example of all the races of men. 
But by the lifting of him up out of manhood into Godhood, 
he comparatively leases to be an example. On the supposition 
that he is God, his words and deeds, matchlessly sublime as 
many of them are, excite in us comparatively little interest and 
no wonder. But that they are the words and deeds of a mere 
man awakens all our admiration, and encourages us with the 
hope that we too, if we shall earnestly endeavor to live the 
Christ-life, will be enabled to speak Christ-words, and do 
Christ-deeds. That they are merely human words and human 
deeds proves what possibilities of wisdom and goodness lie in- 
folded in human nature ; and that these possibilities were so 
developed in the life of one man is an example to inspire their 
development in the life of every other man. The theological 
view of Christ, by putting him hopelessly beyond human imi- 
tation, makes him well-nigh useless as our example. 

That Jesus was both claimed and believed to be a God is 
not strange. The usage of thus accounting for and thus honor- 
ing extraordinary gifts and marked eminence had nob yet 
ceased. The Greeks and Komans had long been wont to deify 
their idolized heroes and philosophers. The story of Christ's 
conception is but a substantial repetition of the story of Plato's. 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



19 



I say that the deification of Christ and of thousands of others 
is not strange. But that the ignorant past should have power 
to drag down the enlightened present into this exceedingly low 
superstition is, indeed, strange. 

Jesus is called the Incarnate God. But G-od has incarnated 
Himself in all men. So inherent and structural is He in them, 
that they are well said to be made in His image I It is true 
that, whilst some men are so spiritual as to be ever filling 
themselves with God, others are so depraved as to be ever 
emptying themselves of Him. Nevertheless, all men are made 
to be receptacles of God ; and it is but their own fault if they 
are not filled with Him. That one so filled with the Divine 
Spirit as was Jesus, should feel and even declare himself to be 
one with God, is not to be wondered at. "We too, were, we so 
filled with it, would, probably, not think it presumptuous to 
feel and claim this oneness. 

The fact that Jesus was so immeasurably above his fellow- 
men is often turned into a defiant argument for his Deityship 
by those who deny that such a fact could occur in the course 
of providence. There is, however, many a wondrous effect, 
the causes of which are hidden from us, but which we, never- 
theless, do not doubt are causes in the course of providence. 
A wondrous effect, all the providential causes of which we are 
very far from knowing, was three such cotemporaries, in 
one little island, as Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton. Each of 
them was in his own way an unsurpassed genius. Jesus was a 
genius in morals ; and, as such, stands without a rival. I have 
often thought, when inquiring into the causes of his preemi- 
nence, how highly probable it is that the conditions of a true 
marriage, and for the production of a pure, sublime, and God- 
like offspring, met remarkably in the parents of Jesus. The 
Catholic Church has, indeed, no little show of reason for claim- 
ing that Mary was immaculate ; and no less would it have for 
the like claim in behalf of Joseph. 

The next inquiry may be whether I put the Atonement 
amongst the things on which the true religion is built. Most 
emphatically not. This doctrine, that "without shedding of 
blood is no remission," and that with it there is — a doctrine 
which has come down to us through so many Pagan channels — 



20 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



is quite too flatly in the face of nature and reason to find favoi 
with those who feel themselves bound to bring all things to 
the tests of nature and reason. That every man must suffer 
for his own sins, be they against his physical or moral consti- 
tution, and that no other one can relieve him of the scars and 
consequences, is a truth lying quite too deep in nature and rea- 
son to be subverted by any thing to the contrary — least of all, 
by what is so uncertain as history, and so absurd as the theo- 
logies. 

Furthermore, I can not believe in the Atonement, because I 
can not believe in any one of the three things, belief in all of 
which is essential to belief in it. 

1st. I can not believe that God, in whose great loving heart 
there is nothing to be appeased, instituted those bloody sacri- 
fices in which the doctrine of the Atonement is founded. It 
was mistaken and cruel Pagan superstition which instituted 
them. Alas ! how mistaken in supposing God to be the enemy 
of the wicked, when their enemy is themselves, and He is their 
friend ! — in supposing Him to pour out curses upon the wicked, 
when it is they who .curse themselves, and He is working to 
withhold them frqm'the self-infliction I And, alas I how cruel 
those abominable sacrifices which doomed the innocent animal 
to a premature slaughter, and wasted the food which belonged 
to the hungry poor ! 

2d. I do not believe that the Father has provided an eter- 
nal hell, nor, indeed, any hell for His children. Whatever 
hell they find here or hereafter, they make for themselves. He 
makes only heavens for them ; and if they do not enter them, 
it is only because they will not. 

3d. I do not believe that Christ is God. But, according to 
the theory of the Atonement, it requires the sacrifice of God to 
save sinners from an eternal hell. And here, by the way, we 
have another instance of . the theological circular reasoning. 
The sacrificed God proves the eternal hell, and the eternity of 
the punishment proves that there could be no less sacrifice. 

Whilst I do not believe that Christ's death has taken away 
the sin of any, be they believers or unbelievers in Him, I do, 
however, believe that He died for all. And I further believe 
that, by looking habitually and lovingly unto Him — unto this 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



21 



preeminent Son and best representative of bis Father — we come 
to hate the sins which he hated and to love the virtues which 
he loved. In a word, we come to love him and be like him, 
and to find that, through his teachings and examples, he has 
become our savior. 

I pass on to speak of Prophecy. Do I believe it to be one 
of the necessary facts in the true religion? I do not believe it 
to be a fact at all. 1st. I do not know but the ancient proph- 
ecy was after the event. 2d. I do not know that the event 
was the very thing foretold. 3d. I do not know but the 
prophecy was generally the discernment of mere human fore- 
sight, instead of the inspired foretelling gift — which prophecy 
is claimed to be. As the modern world has never seen a 
prophet — a technical and inspired prophet — it should be very 
slow to believe that there ever was or, indeed, ever will be one. 
It is said that departed spirits can prophesy through us. I do 
not know how that is. But that men in the flesh have this gift 
or inspiration requires proof. 

And now to the Miracles. Is faith in them essential to a true 
religious faith ? For one, I believe that there never was, and 
that there never will be, a miracle — that is, an arrest or suspen- 
sion of the laws of nature. And I not only believe in, but I 
am content with, the never-failing constancy of those laws. I 
would let water remain water always, though there are many 
who rejoice in the fancy that, for once, it was turned into wine. 
Her seals of death, wherever nature places them, I would leave 
honored and unbroken. But there are many who, desiring an 
occasional triumph over her, even at this point, would have her 
now and then thrust aside, and her dead men called to life. 

I do not believe in miracles, for I have never seen any, and I 
know no man who says he has seen any. Persons are reported 
to have seen the Bible miracles, but I know neither them nor 
their reporters, nor how far any of them are entitled to confi- 
dence. What array, however, of human testimony should suf- 
fice to convince me of the truth of miracles ?— of the truth of the 
claim that nature does sometimes escape from the control of her 
own laws ? Nowhere in the world of facts — not in astronomy, 
nor in geology, nor elsewhere — is there the slightest proof of 
such escape. ?On the other hand, what is less to be relied on 



22 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



than human testimony ? — often deceiving others and often itself 
deceived ? So, the least which can be said is, that if miracles 
were ever necessary to authenticate religion, they are necessary 
now. Nay, in that case, the perpetual performance of them is 
a necessity. Another reason why I object to belief in physical 
miracles is, that it opens the door for belief in moral miracles — 
for belief in the variation, and even the reversal, of the funda- 
mental rules of morality. Denying that the body can die, or 
that when dead, it must remain dead, can consistently be fol- 
lowed by denying that, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." 
In other words, to deny certainty to nature in her moral laws 
is no less unreasonable than to deny it to her in her physical 
laws. Another objection to believing in the miracles is, that it 
virtually denies our capacity to learn the truth, which we need 
to learn, and which we were, therefore, made to learn. And 
such believing is to be objected to, not only because it is dero- 
gatory to the high powers of human nature, but because it im- 
plies that God is driven to violate His laws, in order to correct 
the blunder He fell into in His work of constructing it. 

I notice, of late, that the more cultivated of those who cling 
to the Bible miracles resort, in increasing numbers, to an expe- 
dient for saving themselves from indorsing the monstrous and 
even blasphemous absurdity that Grod is, now and then, guilty 
of violating His own laws, in order to get Himself out of an oc- 
casional pinch. But they only make bad worse. " They jump 
out of the frying-pan into the fire.' J Their expedient is to call 
the miracles but seeming, instead of real, violations of the fixed 
laws of the universe. They take the ground that the perform- 
ers of the miracles had only more knowledge of these laws than 
the ignorant spectators had ; and that the miracles, whilst ap- 
pearing to the spectators to go counter to the laws, were, never- 
theless, really concurrent with them. But this solution of the 
difficulty makes the performers, including Jesus- himself, im- 
postors, for they all knew that the wonders which they are said 
to have wrought, were fraught with conviction solely because 
the spectators believed that they were wrought in the very face 
of nature and against her laws and forces. Manifestly, the 
performers intended this belief, and rested their success upon it. 
Surely, if it were only by his superior knowledge of the laws 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



23 



and forces of nature that Jesus turned the water into wine, the 
spectators, if they knew this to be so, would not, because of 
that knowledge and its wondrous products, have regarded him 
as God, or even as having a special commission from God. 
They would have regarded him as more learned than them- 
selves — that is alL 

Do I regard " Total Depravity V as one of the facts not to be 
omitted in making up the true religion ? It is not a fact. It 
is but a doctrine. In a depravity which comes of a bad life, I, 
of course, believe. Perhaps it is quite reasonable to believe in 
an inborn depravity also. For if it is true that a parent can 
transmit his diseased physical constitution, why can he not 
transmit his depraved moral one also ? But beside that the 
moral one is, probably, not, in any instance, totally depraved, 
this transmission of character from generation to generation is 
not what the believers in " Total Depravity " have in view 
when advocating it. With them the depravity is simply a de- 
duction from the fancied " Fall of Man " in the fancied Garden 
of Eden. Nevertheless, this doctrine is much more than a 
fancy. It is an essential part of a horrible creed — of a theory 
which freezes and subdues by its matchless terrors. We have 
seen that the Atonement and the Eternal Hell are doctrines 
made for the purpose of fitting them into each other. Also, in 
constructing the doctrine of "Total Depravity" was mutual 
support aimed at It fits into both the others, and they fit 
into it. 

Do I hold that a religion to be sound, must comprise rites and 
ceremonies ? I do not. I have, necessarily, lost my interest in 
these by losing my interest in the theologies. I know a little 
church, which gathers every other month around a table to 
commemorate the love of Christ. The bread is broken and the 
unintoxicating wine is poured and passed by one and another, 
women as well as men, and this ceremony is not because of its 
intrinsic value, but because it affords a surpassingly suitable 
occasion for conversing about Christ, his life and death, his 
principles, spirit, and aims. Prayer and singing are intermin- 
gled with the conversation, and the hour spent in this wise is 
felt to be a profitable as well as a pleasant season. 

A few words in this connection regarding the Sabbath. It 



2i 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



may be right to give it up. It may be right to make the 
first day of the week a rest-day. But to say that the first day 
is the Sabbath is absurd ; and to say that the Bible teaches that 
the Sabbath is transferred from the seventh to the first day is 
either delusion or disingenuousness. The simple truth is, that 
such transfer was a concession to very unworthy considerations. 
The conscientious and consistent Seventh-Day Baptists and some 
others cling to the Sabbath. They do so because they cling to 
the Bible — the whole Bible. 

I pass on to say that, whilst the theological religion is a facti- 
tious as well as a fictitious religion, made up as well as false, 
the true religion is identified with nature and reason. It is ow- 
ning to this distinction that, whilst the true religion obeys the 
law of progress, the theological religion prides itself in its un- 
changeableness ; and that whilst the one lives in the present, 
the other burrows in the past. How boastful, for instance, is 
Eoman Catholicism (and Protestantism is scarcely less so) of be- 
ing, in this age of light, precisely what it was hundreds of 
years ago ! In view of this fact, it is, of course, not at all 
strange that the theological churches oppose Eeforras until 
they begin to be popular. And here we see why it is that the 
orthodox are obliged to contend for every line in the Bible. 
Instead of choosing the religion of nature and reason — a religion 
which they could trustingly and calmly leave to nature and 
reason to sustain — they have chosen a conventional and artifi- 
cial religion, which is to be sustained by a body of external 
evidence. That body is the Bible, and, therefore, to give up a 
line of the Bible would be to suffer a breach — a perhaps fatal 
breach— in the evidence of the truth of their religion. 

I need say no more in condemnation of the theologies. If 
the best of them — those "which, to the dishonor of Christ, are 
called the Christian theologies — are, in the main, such bundles 
of naked assumptions and gross fallacies, any farther argument 
against them must be quite superfluous. 

Why is it that men persist in believing in these preposterous 
theologies ? It is, first, because they are trained, and this too 
by means of these theologies, to believe that they have need of 
a direct revelation from their God of their moral duties ; and, 
second, because these theologies are at hand to impose on their 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



25 



credulity, and to proffer themselves as the supply of this need. 
But all the analogies in the case deny that they have such need. 
Men have no revelation to teach them how to build a ship or 
railroad, or cure a bodily disease. God has given them the 
faculties and opportunities for learning how ; and so, too, has 
He given them the faculties and opportunities, nothing more, 
for learning their moral duties. It should be added that these 
moral duties are far more easily learned than are the workman- 
ship and cure referred to. Even childhood is capable of com- 
prehending all that is essential in the one. But it requires a 
studious and laborious manhood to perform the other. It is 
often said that God would not leave us without specific and re- 
vealed instruction in theology. But He has so left us in the 
case of geology, astronomy, physiology, and, indeed, all things 
else. In every branch of knowledge, study, and toil, and not 
ignorant, indolent receptiveness, is the condition of needful 
progress. 

Great stress is laid on the importance of having our know- 
ledge in the sphere of morals and religion attain to certainty, 
and hence the argument for a direct revelation of the things of 
that sphere. But the mistake which lies at the bottom of all 
this is the underrating of human powers and human dignity. 
It is not man, but beings of an inferior grade, that need certain- 
ty in their knowledge. The beaver and the bee have it in their 
sure instincts. But man's high faculties supersede the necessity 
as well of instinctive as of revealed certainty. It is true that, 
instead of setting out in life, as does the brute, with all the 
knowledge he needs, he is to labor for it throughout his life. 
But it is also true that, with, the help of those high faculties, he 
can labor successfully for it. He requires not the sure guid- 
ance of either instinct or revelation. Enough for him is it that, 
by means of those faculties, he can be ever approaching cer- 
tainty. u The glorious uncertainty of the law," not in an ironi- 
cal sense only, has become a proverb. But more glorious are 
the uncertainties in sublime moral and religious truth, through 
which man must ever be working his way up toward the dis- 
tant and perhaps never attainable goal of entire certainty. 
Lessing was right in holding that it is the pursuit more than 
the possession of truth which ennobles and glorifies man. 



26 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



But it is said that it is only bj revelation that we can acquire 
certain knowledge of the life to come. "Why, however, should 
we desire this certain knowledge, or, indeed, any knowledge of 
the life to come ? Should we not have so much faith in God 
as to believe with the whole heart that, when we reach that life, 
we shall find it just such an one as we need ? — a life of joy to 
the righteous and of improving discipline to the wicked ? More- 
over, have we, whilst in the earthly life, more than time enough 
to learn the things which belong to it ? But must we not, 
whilst here, prepare for the next life ? — and to this end 
do we not need a revelation of the things of that life ? No. 
Whilst here, we are to live for this life ; and that is our best 
and, indeed, our only way to prepare for the next. There are 
many who are habitually leaping over the duties of this life 
into the heaven they dream of and are impatient for. So, too, 
there are many who are unfitted for these duties by the hell 
they dread. But both classes should be absorbed in these 
duties, and then they would find a heaven, in this life, and be,in 
no danger of finding a hell in another. He is wise and safe 
who toils to rid the earth of the hell there is upon eartb, and to 
make, right here and even now, the " new heaven and new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. " 

I must close. A sad thing is it that men are bound up in 
these theologies. But a sadder thing is the so faint prospect 
that they will very soon be unbound. The good cling to the 
theologies for conscience' and also for salvation's sake ; and it is 
but justice to admit that the great mass of the good believe in 
the theologies. The bad cling to them because, it being for 
their interest to go with the good, they will ever do so when 
they can do so cheaply. Moreover, a large share of them hope 
that by such clinging they will have a better chance to get to 
heaven. The bare fact that a man has received his theology 
on Divine authority makes his giving it up well-nigh hopeless. 
The door is shut against all argument, and whoever would pre- 
sume to attempt to open it is guilty of the bold blasphemy of 
bringing forward mere human reasonings against God's unerring 
word. Even judges and statesmen will consent to let me argue 
before them. They, of course, see the flaws in my arguments. 
But, as they are conscious of the fallibility of human reasonings, 



THE TTIEOLOGIES. 



27 



their own not excepted, they hear me kindly and respectfully. 
But I always notice that these orthodox theologians, who fancy 
that they have a " Thus saith the Lord " for their convictions, 
refuse me the hearing ear. From the prond eminence of their 
conscious infallibility they look down upon me with pity and 
scorn, and sometimes with manifest anger. They let me know, 
if not always by words, nevertheless by look and manner, that 
it does not become a man to argue against God, 

How numerous and powerful the institutions and agencies 
for upholding the theologies and prolonging their existence ! 
Eot to look beyond our own country — see the scores of thou- 
sands of churches, whose life is in the theologies ! See, too, the 
scores of thousands of their preachers, many of whom, it is true? 
would still remain faithful and effective preachers of righteous- 
ness, but the occupation of more of whom would be gone when 
the theologies were gone I See, too, the many great schools 
which represent and serve the theologies ; and the Bible, Mis 
sionary, and other great societies, which also represent and sus- 
tain them ! Then, too, our literature is deeply imbued with 
their spirit. Kay, they are incorporated in it. All their doc* 
trines, even the wildest and worst, are embalmed in it and sanc- 
tified by it. Moreover, as men are the subjects of hopes and 
fears more than of all other affections, their theologies, which 
are the great fountains of their hopes and fears, must necessari- 
ly, more than all other influences, possess and sway them. To 
let go of the theologies is, in their apprehension, to fail of the 
heaven they hope for, and to fall into the hell they fear. And, 
then, to give up the theological religion, with all its poetry and 
pictures, its touching stories and frequent eloquence — to give it 
up for a matter-of-fact religion — to give up a religion so juicy 
and so decorated, in exchange for the dry, flowerless, leafless 
religion of reason — oh ! the mere thought of it is unbearable ! 

I must not fail to add that the upholding of the theologies is 
regarded as an indispensable public policy. The terrors which 
they inspire are largely relied on to maintain society, and to 
maintain the State. The reliance is by no means misplaced. 

" The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip 
To haud the wretch in order." 



28 



THE THEOLOGIES. 



And yet how poor the society, composed of the superstitions- 
bound and fear-shriveled, compared with the society which 
will be, when reason shall have driven out superstition, and the 
courage which accompanies reason shall have taken the place 
of the present cowardice ! And of how low and mean a type 
is the State, whose subjects are too far unmanned by theologi- 
cal horrors to be able to face either priest or politician, com- 
pared with what the State will be when its subjects, enlightened 
by science and swayed by reason, shall be self-poised and self- 
governing ! 

In view of all this, and of much more to the same end, the 
overthrow of the theologies seems to be not only difficult and 
distant, but well-nigh impossible. Nevertheless, as they are, in 
the main, fanciful and false, we are sure that they can not stand 
forever. ISTay, we may hope that, should the very rapid prog- 
ress of the last three or four generations in science and general 
intelligence continue three or four generations longer, the powei 
of the theologies will be broken throughout our country, and, 
may be, throughout the world. But, be the day of deliverance 
from this burden of burdens, and this curse of curses, sooner or 
later, it will be then, and not till then, that Humanity will have 
fully entered upon a new life— a life of science instead of super- 
stition, of fact instead of fancy, of wisdom instead of folly, of 
happiness instead of misery. One, and only one, religion will 
then be seen to have survived the wreck of the theological reli- 
gions — of those religions in which so much that is false and 
evil blends with so much that is true and good ; so much that 
is fanciful, grotesque, fanatical, horrible, with so' much that is 
beautiful and sublime. This surviving religion is the manly 
and matter-of-fact religion of reason. It is the religion taught 
by Jesus. It is the religion which, he and his preeminent apos- 
tle ..taught, has but one rule, and this rule so simple that 
all'can^ understand it, and so obviously true that all are con- 
vinced of the truth of it. Do as you would be done by 
is this rule. 

" Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and 

THE PROPHETS."- — Jesus. 

" For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this : 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." — Paul. 



/ 



